One of the pioneers of creative/original writing on the Internet, Governor Linda Lingle of Hawaii thought he could make the greatest impact stimulating the thinking in Hawaii by running for the legislature. Whether one wins or loses an election, he thinks concerned citizens must persist in articulating the best ideas on what government can be, because it is the clarity of thinking in society that is the underlying basis of government -- and not merely the individuals in office.

Friday, August 24, 2012

The Function of Education

The real function of education -- is to teach a student so they can learn on their own, anything they REALLY have to -- and not just because the education professionals and experts think it is important and necessary for EVERYBODY to do so -- when they say everybody must, in order for them to justify their own full employment.

The challenge of these times -- as well as any other, IS to prepare every generation to successfully solve the real problems of their own existence -- rather than everybody to carry on the work of Newton, Einstein, Milton and Shakespeare, although there will be a few prodigies that do -- but whether it is productive for a society to require that everybody has that inclination, and even mandate it as the qualifications for successful living, shows how "unqualified" the professional educators are in determining those values for everyone -- but merely reinforces the dependency on the teachers and the education system to determine that curriculum for everybody else.

And that should be, what are the skills that people are failing at -- in their real lives. Obviously, right off the top, that would be their health and well-being, and the knowledge and skills necessary to achieve and maintain it -- as the top priority, rather than algebra, poetry and Latin, as what everybody needs to get by in life. No, they need a fundamental grounding in the realities of life -- and not the fairy tales and other myths that are taught to them so there is no room for anything else. And it is the "anything else," or even "everything else" (reality), that is sacrificed and denied in favor of the education indoctrination of the purely academic and "noble" purposes that obscure the "teachers" of their own clarity of their function and purpose -- which is ultimately, that the student can determine such matters for themselves, all their lives, learning from anything and anyone, for the rest of their lives, as people increasingly have to do.

There will inevitably be the child prodigies for which that is THEIR reality -- to advance esoteric knowledge because that is their unique interest and gift, that also needs to be recognized, encouraged and directed to the right masters of that field, but for any society to train EVERYONE for a specialized or academic discipline for learning's own sake, is the reason many, if not most, adults have an aversion to learning anything useful -- and think that learning is arbitrary, pretentious and irrelevant -- which is the real measure and failing of the present education system and all those involved.

When the teacher and their essential role in the process becomes the dominant, if not exclusive concern, then that education has already failed -- and something else entirely different, focused on the successful adaption of every student to real life and the problems they may encounter, then everything else becomes possible, and even easy -- but not vice-versa, that merely solving academic problems, no matter how irrelevant and frustrating, is good discipline that will ensure that we don't see the high dropout rate we do that dooms many young people to be alienated from society, and to have no idea what real life is, because their teachers were "too busy" and "well-prepared" -- teaching them what they "needed" to learn instead.